Sources

High school students learn to cite references for their research papers. Journalists, likewise, quote informants. And if you've got a juicy piece of gossip, you'll make sure to say that you "heard it from someone" -- anonymous or not. Reliance on testimony is part of the human condition. We are forced to rely on it if we want anything close to a comprehensive picture of the world: None of us is sufficiently intelligent or experienced (not to mention omnipresent or capable of time travel!) to directly comprehend more than a sliver of what humans collectively know. A fundamental problem with testimony is of course how to determine whether someone or something that appears to be credible really is so. Often "testifiers" are unreliable, sometimes even deceitful.

Reliance on memoryis also part of what it means to be human. Without it we would be forever relearning things we had already come to know. But memory can be faulty: We can misremember facts or interpret them unfaithfully.

Finally, we are profoundly shaped by our life experiences. Some such "shaping" is literal: neuroscience has shown that the brain is "plastic," that connections are actually made (or not) based off experiences (for example, being read to as a child). But most such conditioning comes from the gradual sculpting of our personality through life events.

Learning to identify the sources of our beliefs -- the testimony of others, our memories, and our past experiences -- and to critically evaluate their credibility is a fundamental life skill, one which many unfortunately never learn. Moreover, the fact that we are humans and not logic-chopping machines means that many of our sources are built into the very fabric of our lives. Indeed, we rely on them so implicitly, so completely that we don't even recognize them as sources per se. We should.

I am not arguing here for a root-and-branch critique of everything we've ever learned or lived. That would be neurotic, unnecessary, and psychologically impossible. I am instead urging, again, the Delphic dictum to "Know Thyself" and the Pauline command to judge ourselves soberly. The primary sources for my beliefs up till now are listed below: these will emerge again and again in my essays and life sketches.

The culture in which I grew upI've already mentioned my parents; I've also two younger sisters -- fine women now, with excellent husbands and lovely children. Though I'm a son of the Deep South, my parents were transplants from regions -- a military town in Georgia (Mom) and East Tennessee (Dad) -- that had a different ethos than my hometown. Thus, I didn't grown up hunting, though there's no better place in the world to shoot quail. I did grow up having racial tolerance instilled in me, despite the fact that my hometown proved intractable to Martin Luther King, Jr. himself. My parents were, in their way, rather progressive: They home schooled my sisters and me for a number of years, back when homeschooling was on the fringes. They left a traditional Southern Baptist church to form a new, neo-Charismatic one. And they were involved in the early days of grassroots, conservative-Christian political activism, campaigning for Pat Robertson in 1988. My Dad is a deeply practical man; my Mom an expansively idealistic woman. Together they were a good balance, though I confess that sometimes the "balance" was achieved rather like that on a see-saw. My parents -- though not intellectuals per se -- are intelligent:Growing up, they were always well-informed. Every night there were the local and national news. Every day there was The Albany Herald, which they read the ink off. They read thought-provoking books, attended interesting church conferences. My Dad worked in the freight business. So, beyond managing the local trucking terminal, he spent many years traveling South Georgia meeting with clients. As for my Mom, she has always been the epitome of a "lifelong learner." I would thus characterize my formative milieu as deeply grounded, yet outward looking. We were part of a tight knit circle of friends and fellow travelers: homeschooling families and zealous seekers of "the deeper things of God." We lived self-consciously counter to the prevailing, local culture. Above all, a desire to know and do God's Truth was everyone's burning concern. Looking back, I am struck by the ardor, the sincerity, the seriousness, and the (mostly) joy of this "Southern-Evangelical-Baptist-Pentecostal" stream of Christianity. (1)

ChurchOne of my earliest memories is of watching the interplay of shadows, cast by lights high above, under the pews in the sanctuary of Byne Memorial Baptist Church. Though I was looking down, I was still listening. I heard what the preacher had to say and took it into my heart: It resides there still. In the years since I have participated in and been influenced by so very many churches and parachurch organizations. All of these have been conservative-evangelical; some have been quasi-fundamentalist: Southern Baptist, neo-Charismatic, a homeschooling / family renewal movement, evangelical university groups, Evangelical Free, and Presbyterian. In these I was exposed to various theological perspectives (with varying degrees of precision), including: Dispensationalist, Arminian, Reformed, Wesleyan, Baptist, Pentecostal / Charismatic, mainstream Evangelical -- not to mention "that old-time religion." On the other hand I have had almost no involvement with the mainline Protestant denominations. Nor do I have much direct experience with the Catholic and Orthodox communions -- though my studies in philosophy, history, and literature have given me a profound respect for these traditions. (2)

WorkMy first real job was working with peanuts -- at the National Peanut Research Lab in Dawson, Georgia. I shall always be grateful for that opportunity: It opened the doors for many others. And I will always remember the people I met there -- in particular a Black man named Al -- who were the first in a long series of fellow laborers and colleagues that showed me a wider world, one beyond my cloistered upbringing. A place of commerce and progress, where people hassle and hustle, push and shove, deliberate and collaborate. One where money is made, things are built, stuff gets done. Some of my finest moments have come at work: The threat of penury has a way of focusing the mind and the will, often to outstanding effect. Though I sojourned briefly in academia, nearly all of my work has been in the making or building of things: Manufacturing paper towels and tissue; taking orders for industrial equipment; constructing research labs, clinics, MRI suites, cyclotron and electron microscope facilities, and classrooms. I've had the privilege of working for a Fortune 50 company, small and mid-sized companies, and a world-class university. I've worked with professionals and tradesmen, with doctors, educators, scientists, architects, engineers, finance types, administrators, welders, carpenters, electricians, millwrights, papermakers, asbestos abatement contractors, and MBAs. After reaching a certain level of professional respectability, when I was thirty I started all over again, beating the streets of Santa Fe Springs, California trying to find part-time work during seminary. I've worked on both sides of the continent and both sides of the Atlantic. Beyond learning how to get complicated things done, work has taught me about people: It's made me more tolerant, more comprehending of different perspectives, and open to new ways of doing and seeing things. I've learned the pleasures of salty language and ribald humor. I've known both terrible humans and princes among men, both imbeciles and geniuses, both cowards and brave ones, both men so arrogant you could feel their egos before you saw them and others of rare grace. As someone who aspires to live the life of the mind, my work has also given me a perspective that is rare among intellectuals. (3)

SchoolMuch of my education has been of the self-taught sort. Being home schooled rather forced me to learn how to learn on my own. (My parents have many gifts; aptitude for trigonometry is not one of them.) But I've also spent quite a lot of time in school. I did mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech, theology and philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, and doctoral studies in philosophy at the University of Virginia. I've discovered the limits of self-education and the great merits of the formal sort: It is simply not possible to get an adequate education in such fields on your own. You need a community -- really smart teachers to guide you, fellow students to challenge you, and the rigor of grades to force comprehension. Tech gave me the conceptual skills to solve complex problems, as well as a strong foundation in math and science. Talbot grounded me in basic Christian thought and showed me a winsome, gracious version of evangelicalism. Virginia exposed me to the broader intellectual universe, forced me to appreciate reasonable challenges to the Christian worldview, and instilled in me the discipline of doing research and writing. The result of all this schooling? What I know about the world is broader, richer, and more nuanced; how I think is both more critical and more tolerant; and what I require in terms of justification for statements about religion and politics (among other domains) is higher and more exacting. (4)

Personal studyOne of my greatest pleasures post-Ph.D. has been the opportunity to read more widely than just on my dissertation topic. I've got a long list of books -- constantly growing -- that I want to read. I read as much as I can, which is to say not as much as I'd like. I try to read broadly: history, literature, politics, theology, philosophy, economics, science, and some contemporary fiction. As to current events I am a devoted reader of The Economist newspaper: It has given me a broader, more objective, and more nuanced perspective on politics, the lives of nations and peoples, business, the centrality of economics to human flourishing, science (especially on evolution and climate change), and culture. No other factor has been more significant in pushing me toward a non-partisan, moderate, Centrist position in politics. With respect to literature, art, cultural critique, and enlightened commentary, I read the journal Books & Culture. B&C is written from a basically evangelical Christian vantage. However, the contributors represent the full spectrum of that (nowadays) diverse movement. They are mostly Christian intellectuals writing for readers who cherish the life of the mind. B&C has been influential in excising the last bits of fundamentalism from my theology and in showing me the wideness within faithful Christianity for differing points of view. Finally, I write. I've found that writing is crucial for learning: It forces you to take all the mass of things you've read or heard, distill them, and put them down in a coherent form. (5)

Travel, Interesting life experiencesI've had the good fortune to travel a bit. A formative experience was a missions trip to Brasil when I was around fifteen. In college I visited The Netherlands. Later, my employer sent me and my family to Manchester, England for nine months. While there we saw as much of England, Scotland, and Wales as we could manage. I was able to cross the Channel and visit the beaches of Normandy. We also did the quintessential American tourist thing, visiting Paris and Rome. Our later sojourn in Southern California was, for Southerners like ourselves, like living in another country. And my time in graduate school at the University of Virginia was as a stranger in a strange country. Finally, my wife and I were privileged to visit friends in Nigeria a few years ago. Travelling and living in new places can do wonders to broaden your horizons and your mind -- they certainly have for me. But they will only do so if you let them: I know people that have traveled but never really journeyed -- they only had their prejudices reinforced. (6)

Good CounselI've been blessed to have had wise men and women give me good advice over the years. And I have generally been pretty good at taking it. In particular, the men at the church where I grew up told me true things to which I listened. I've also received substantive comfort and help from various mental health professionals, in particular from the three psychiatrists I've had in the years since my diagnosis. Psychiatrists are trained to listen and to heal -- not to judge. Still, my doctors have told me true things about myself, to which I've tried to pay heed.

My wife and kidsI began this list of "sources" with my birth family; I end it with my here-and-now family. It's a bittersweet moment when you realize that your spouse and your kids have, in terms of the influence they have on your beliefs, finally surpassed the influence formerly commanded by your parents and siblings. To know that the same thing will happen with your own children someday makes it all the more poignant. It is not an exaggeration to say that my wife has been as influential as any other person or factor in shaping my views as an adult. She may not believe that, but it's true. Her simple faith and strong convictions, plain-dealing and plain-speaking, good sense, generosity, and compassion reverberate through my beliefs. Though I lack her constancy, simplicity, and guilelessness, I'm compelled by her life and witness to seek them. I love her very much. I also love my kids very much. One of the best-kept secrets about kids is that they don't necessarily have to be maniacs as teenagers and young adults. They can be lots of fun: Mine are. Teenagers are of course expert in pointing out hypocrisies and inconsistencies -- which can be valuable if you let it. But they can also amaze with the insights and the points-of-view that they have on questions which you had long thought fully answered. It's both rewarding and bracing to see them take their own steps into adulthood and plot their own course of faith and reason. It's also instructive.

Footnotes(1) (i) From the Fall of 1961 through the Summer of 1962, my hometown was at the leading edge of the campaign for civil rights. A coalition known as the Albany Movement began to agitate for an end to segregation in the city. Marches and mass arrests followed. MLK came to town and ended up in jail for a short time. I understand that, though King thought his time in Albany, Georgia ultimately a defeat, he learned lessons there that were later used, successfully, in Selma and Birmingham. My parents moved to Albany in the early Seventies --about a decade after these events. Incredibly, I never learned this history -- except for vague stories about troubles in the Sixties -- until I was an adult. When I asked my mom why people never spoke of it, she said that, at the time of these events and for years later, "white people were just plain scared." In the ensuing decades that fear (and lingering intolerance) turned into annoyance and disgust, as Blacks took over the leadership of the city and managed it in a way that Whites didn't approve. Whites have now mostly migrated out of town, to the county just north. Still, when I visit home, my sense is that nowadays the two communities rub along generally well. And overt racism is mostly a thing of the past. What gets most Whites' hackles up are their perceptions about the Black community in terms of welfare dependency, crime, drugs, and dissolution of the family. The Black community no doubt does have its problems. However, it would do Whites a world of good to understand the history of slavery and segregation in the South. An appreciation of that history (not to mention repentance for "the sins of the fathers") would improve understanding, tolerance, and love. (For more information on the Albany Movement, see the entries in Wikipedia and in the New Georgia Encyclopedia (georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/albany-movement). There's also now an Albany Civil Rights Institute (albanycivilrightsinstitute.org)) (ii) With respect to The Albany Herald, my parents read it after they had delivered the paper in our neighborhood. My Mom got a paper route when I was in high school so that we kids could "learn how to work." She and (later) my Dad would have that route for eighteen years. That's how they paid for piano lessons, public speaking lessons, vacations, and so on.(iii) With respect to the life of the mind, my parents read The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom, which is pretty remarkable given their context. I also recall my Dad talking about "paradigm shifts" -- a notion he'd heard at a business meeting. Only later did I learn about Thomas Kuhn and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. (2) (i) I'm referring to the original location of Byne, at the corner of North Jackson Street and West Society Avenue. Another early memory is of hearing the hymn "Near to the Heart of God" by Cleland B. McAfee on the record player at home: "There is a place of quiet rest, Near to the heart of God; A place where sin cannot molest, Near to the heart of God..." As a child I knew that place; I have spent much of my life since trying to find it again.(ii) With respect to "fundamentalists," one wag has said that "a 'fundamentalist' is that S.O.B. sitting to the right of me." This is a pretty accurate portrayal of how we often treat views that are, in fact, only slightly different than our own -- or are at least on the same continuum. "I go to a 'Charismatic-lite' church where people dance, raise hands, sing ecstatically, and 'lay hands' on each other.... but I've never been to a Pentecostal church where there is speaking in tongues. And I sure as shootin' haven't ever been to one of those snake-handling churches!" "I go to a church in which the Bible is taught using the 'fine-toothed-comb' hermeneutic or in which 'true doctrine' (e.g., Reformed theology) is systematically preached and woven into all church life ('We've even got Bibles that advertise these things on their covers!').... but I would never attend a 'legalistic' church!"(iii) The word 'fundamentalism' has a rather tragic history. At the dawn of the last century conservative Protestants saw a need to articulate and defend beliefs that they considered essential to the faith. This was largely in response to the rise of so-called Modernist thought in the seminaries. (I note in passing the parallel between the terms 'modernist' as used in the early 1900s and 'progressive' which is now prominent.) As part of this larger movement, a set of books was published (by an early incarnation of the seminary I attended, in fact) called The Fundamentals: A Testimony To The Truth. It consisted of essays written by conservative Christian thinkers on topics as diverse as evolution, higher criticism, Roman Catholicism, the inspiration of Scripture, the virgin birth of Christ, and socialism. Now, nothing could be more reasonable or understandable than for conservative Christians to put forth such a collective manifesto. And no word would seem to better capture what was at stake than 'fundamental'. So why is its connotation now uniformly negative? Largely, this was due to the eventual triumph of Modernism in mainline denominations and of a secularized Protestantism in the dominant culture. To call someone a fundamentalist became a way to dismiss him as backwards, parochial, close-minded. However, it was also due, at least in part, to a failure of conservative Christians to engage the larger culture in a more productive, less reactive way. Christians turned inward, away from the larger culture. Besides retreating in areas like art, music, and literature, American conservative Christians shut down their brains. They let wither the long and glorious tradition of Christian intellectualism. In his justly famous book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, Mark Noll argues that the "scandal" of the evangelical mind is simply that -- there is not much of one. Alas, so true -- though things are getting better. (For a sympathetic, though fair, treatment of The Fundamentals, from the intellectual descendants of the original publishers, see the article in the Summer 2014 edition of Biola Magazine,"The Untold Story of The Fundamentals.")(iv) The Southern Baptist Convention is, I assume, the majority denomination where I grew up. The Baptists are passionate about "salvation" (they want everyone to go to heaven); the Bible (it's God's Word and literally true); and good works (after a natural disaster you can expect the Baptists to arrive before the Red Cross). My earliest exposure to church was in the SBC; I am deeply grateful to them. (v) I understand that the theologian C. Peter Wagner has identified three distinct movements in twentieth-century Christianity that were (and are) characterized by an emphasis on the presence and work of the Holy Spirit: the Pentecostal movement (early 1900s), the Charismatic movement (1960s), and what he dubbed "The Third Wave" or neo-Charismatic movement (its genesis was in the mid-seventies, its heyday perhaps the mid-eighties). The group most associated with the latter is the Vineyard Movement; the personality, the late John Wimber. (I actually heard Wimber speak once; it was in in Dallas, Texas. I must have been around thirteen, the year around 1985. He deeply impressed me.) This "wave" swept through many denominations, including the Southern Baptists. More often than not it resulted in a parting of the ways between the traditionalists and the "surfers." Such a parting happened in our Baptist church when I was around thirteen. This was epoch-forming in my life. (vi) This "homeschooling / family renewal movement" was the Institute in Basic Life Principles / Advanced Training Institute, led by Bill Gothard. Of all the Christian groups I've ever been associated with IBLP / ATI has the strongest claim to count as "fundamentalist" in the ugly sense of that word. (Some have even labeled it a "cult," though I'm not sure that's fair.) IBLP / ATI had some valuable aspects: Its "net value" for me and my family was, I think, to the good -- barely. However, its net value in the aggregate (i.e., for everyone ever associated with it) was, if I had to make an educated guess, negative. My parents' simultaneous participation in IBLP / ATI and a neo-Charismatic church -- two movements that were largely at odds in terms of theology and ethos -- demonstrates their passion to follow what they thought true even on pain of contradiction. (The folks at RecoveringGrace.org provide a fair if critical assessment of IBLP / ATI teaching and practice. They also document the damage it has done to many of its erstwhile followers.) (vii) While an undergraduate I was very involved in a campus group led by former members of Maranatha Campus Ministries. MCM was founded by Bob Weiner in the early seventies; it closed up shop in the early nineties. MCM originated in the Charismatic movement. It has been criticized (rightly, in my experience) for being authoritarian and legalistic. In college I was also exposed, albeit briefly, to Campus Crusade for Christ -- now mystifyingly renamed Cru. (viii) I had never even heard of the Evangelical Free Church until our sojourn in Southern California. A lovely group of people, these descendants of Scandinavian Lutherans. (ix) My family now attends a Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) church.

(3) (i) My most formative experiences as a professional were with Procter & Gamble. I worked at its Albany paper-converting plant which makes Charmin and Bounty. I shall never forget the first time I stepped on to a paper machine: the water and steam, the round-and-round of the rollers and belts, the smell of paper stock mixed with lubricating oil, the springy metal grating underfoot, the great din of all that equipment pressing through my earplugs -- It was brilliant! Of all the people I've ever worked with, the managers at P&G were the most professional, the smartest, the most well-rounded, the most talented. P&G taught me much about leadership, management, and the life of organizations. It gave me an opportunity to work overseas, to work on novel technologies and cool projects, and to meet exceedingly clever people. It also demonstrated to me how group-think can infect even a bunch of very smart people. How a group of people can, collectively, do some really stupid things, ones that would have never occurred to any one of them alone. (ii) During our Southern California sojourn I had several unusual jobs: I worked for the McMaster-Carr Supply Company, taking orders over the phone. I hated it. And I was apparently terrible at it -- or so my arrogant, wet-behind-the-ears manager led me to believe. It's the only job I've ever quit in protest -- in retrospect an incredibly stupid and arrogant thing to have done. However, I did gain empathy for all those people that work phones everyday, taking orders and providing service -- it's a lot harder than it seems. I next did a stint as an estimator for a construction company. My boss was a mean little man. He and his boss (the guy who hired me) often communicated by screaming and cursing at each other. What a terrible place. Finally, I worked for a firm that supplied HVAC equipment. The people there were very nice and taught me some things.(4) (i) Being home schooled in high school, I was personally driven -- compelled really -- to learn as much as I could about as much as I could, both for the intrinsic value in education as well as for the extrinsic value in going on to college. For example, for several years I spent the weeks around Christmas researching the Constitution at the downtown library. This was in preparation for speeches I wrote for the American Legion Oratorical Contest; my (limited) successes in this provided some scholarship money. (I recall a quotation at the entrance to the library, by Aeschylus: "Time in its aging course teaches us all things.") (ii) There are a plethora of small Bible schools and training institutes that exist among conservative evangelicals. Though these no doubt do much good work they also pose risks in terms of Christian intellectual formation. These have such a small pool of quality teachers, the limits of what they can adequately teach is so circumscribed, and the possibility of insularity and group-think in them is so great, that the graduates of these schools can easily come to believe that they know more than they in fact do. I know people that have sat in an eight-week lecture series on Church history and think that they have a reasonable grasp of that topic. I've read a fair amount of Church history and know that I have only a passable grasp. These risks are even greater with the person who has only been self-taught. (iii) One of the underappreciated aspects of taking a degree in philosophy is how much ancillary stuff you engage with along the way: history, political theory, economics, science, psychology, literary theory, and so on. Thus my dissertation was on Francisco Suárez -- a late-medieval, early-modern Spanish, Jesuit theologian-philosopher (1548-1617). My research required a basic comprehension of Latin, knowledge of important ancient Greek and medieval Christian philosophers, familiarity with Suárez's milieu (he was an important figure in the Counter-Reformation), and awareness of how his ideas fit within later intellectual trends up to the present day. Thus I learned much history and theology and some science, politics, and psychology, for free, so to speak.

(5) (i) I keep up with my books using a wonderful site called LibraryThing (www.librarything.com). (ii) I love The Economist for many reasons: It does not mince words; it is an "equal opportunity abuser" of people in power; it is authoritative when it comes to "the facts of the matter"; though objective about "the facts," it writes from an openly admitted, definite, clear-and-up-front vantage point, rather than hiding behind the conceit of being "fair and balanced"; it makes explicit arguments for the opinions it adopts; and it is internationalist in focus. It has helped me understand the rise of China, the value of the UN, why fiscal "stimuli" are often necessary, the intricacies of The Great Recession, and why Obamacare is not evil -- among so many other things. I realize that no news source is infallible. I once heard of someone who read six newspapers a day: I wish I could do that, but I can't. So I do what seems to me the next best thing. (For more information on The Economist see www.economist.com/help/about-us#About_Economistcom) (iii) Books & Culture: A Christian Review (www.booksandculture.com) is a publication of Christianity Today. I highly recommend it.

(6) (i) I went with the Baptists to Brasil; we did construction on a church in Jundiaí, which is on the outskirts of São Paulo. The place and the people -- especially the young ladies -- made a lasting, lovely impression on me. I remember our hosts insisting to us that they too were Americans -- South Americans. (ii) I went with my campus group (another missions trip) to the Delft University of Technology in Delft, The Netherlands. There I saw my first Old World cathedral.(iii) P&G sent me to Manchester to help commission a new paper machine. (The "lads" I worked with at the plant were some of the most unhappy people I've ever met.) My wife and kids (two at the time) were able to join me. We rented a nice little place in the village of Lymm, near the town of Warrington in Cheshire, on the Bridgewater Canal. Looking back, it's surprising how much touring we did given that we had two kids under three. The UK is of course brilliant. (iv) My maternal grandfather fought on D-Day and was still alive when I visited Normandy. I found, at his request, a monument for his unit, the 741st Tank Battalion, which he'd helped pay to have erected. (v) Our time in Paris was wet and cold (even in July!); our time in Rome was sunny and warm. Our respective enjoyment of each matched their weather. (vi) Southern California: Land of a billion traffic lights! We lived a year in Brea (northern Orange county) and two in South Whittier (southern Los Angeles county). I recall once overhearing (the houses were so close!) a young Latina girl at the next house preparing a school report that praised Pancho Villa as a hero. A very different perspective than the one I'd grown up with. (vii) In 2008 my wife and I visited central and northeastern Nigeria. We made lasting friends. These areas have for many years been prone to occasional bursts of communal violence between Muslims and Christians. More recently Islamist-extremist terrorism has taken root. The situation now is very desperate. (viii) Finally, I've traveled also to Jamaica, again with the Baptists.(ix) All of this puts me in mind of Mark Twain's comment in Innocents Abroad: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” Though I've not yet read Innocents Abroad, I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. Again, though, you've got to be willing to really see things when you travel, if it's to do you any good.Original 7/9/14; minor revisions 12/31/14; minor revisions 3/7/15.

UPDATE ON 9/28/14. My father, Glen, passed away on September 17th, 2014, ten days before his sixty-seventh birthday. He died of colon cancer. He is missed.